Six of the best outdoor and water games and toys for older kids this summer

It’s time to chuck the kids out into the garden with a few outdoor toys so that you can get a bit of peace and quiet.

Alternatively, you might even be mad enough to join in…

But what water games and other toys are there that are a little different for the garden, and can give you and yours a bit of good energetic fun?

My kids are nine and ten now, so they are looking for fun with water, mixed in with a little danger and boisterousness. We have trawled the Amazon outdoor pages so you don’t have to and found the best toys for slightly older kids to play with outside. What do you think? Anymore you would like to add to these?

No garden is complete, particularly if there are kids involved (either big or small), without a Nerf gun (US) in it somewhere. This gun has a fantastic spinning nozzle so you can get more of the kids with one shot! It also fires 10m / 35ft, and holds up to a litre of water too, which should mean there there is nowhere to hide for anyone…

If the Tornado isn’t enough for you, then you can always tool up with the Squall Surge (US) instead. Pumping this gun means that the special pressurised-trigger firing makes it possible to fire a very powerful stream of water to whomever dares to enter your garden ;-). It hold just under half a litre of water, and shots a little further than its brother at 10.6m.

A game you can play indoors as well as outdoors – fill up the hat with water, stick in the four pins, stick it on, and take the #WetHeadChallenge with this Water Roulette game. You can use both the spinner to choose your forfeit, or ask trivia questions through the free app from Wt Head and Zing too. Make sure no-one is about to post the videos of you playing on YouTube though; there are quite a few videos of people already playing this game as it looks like its going to be a big hit!

This is quite simply, an awesome invention and was a wonderful Kickstarter campaign that just went viral! This product lets you fill and tie 100 water balloons in less than 60 seconds. Just brilliant for playing in the garden, and what better is that there are a number of different products available now as well, including X-Shot Bunch o Balloon 3-pack (RRP £9.99), a launcher pack (RRP £14.99) and a value launcher pack (RRP £24.99), so you can really get stuck in with the water balloon fights in the garden now. The value launcher comes with TWO balloon launchers, so there really is nowhere to hide now ;-).

This toy is definitely our favourite from all the ones we have featured. Perfect for water games for the kids for parties; give them each a launcher and just wait to see them all get totally soaked! A perfect way to spend your party ;-)

This is the latest addition to the Bug Attack series (Amazon UK/US) of games, and works well in the garden, particularly against the side of the house, or a fence – though make sure you don’t bother the neighbours. Throw the bugs against the wall, watch them stick and pull back that bow and arrow to knock them off again. Great fun for boys and girls alike…particularly in the wake of the rise in bow and arrow games after the release of The Hunger Games of course.

So here you go, here are six of the best water games and other toys for the garden which we have found – what else would you add though?

About The Author

Helen is a mum to two, social media consultant, website editor and regular guest on Spanners BBC Cambridgeshire radio show. Since giving up being a business analyst when juggling travel, work and kids proved too complicated, she founded KiddyCharts so she could be with her kids, and use those grey cells at the same time. KiddyCharts works with big family brands (including travel) to help promote their services, as well as offering free resources to parents of kids under 10. She's happy to chat on anything parenting. She is also a part-time digital marketing analyst with Channel Mum. She can often be found hanging about on social media, and trying to avoid stepping on the Lego her kids keep leaving lying around.

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About Me

Helen Neale

Helen is a mum to two, digital marketer and website editor. She founded KiddyCharts in 2011 to enable her to work from home.

KiddyCharts is passionate about offering kids and parents its resources for FREE. KiddyCharts continues to make this possible because the site works with big family brands to promote relevant products to their audience.

Helen works part-time as a digital marketing analyst with Channel Mum.

Spare time is mostly spent trying to avoid stepping on the Lego her kids keep leaving lying around.